WXforum.net
Weather Software => WeatherLink/weatherlink.com by Davis Instruments => Topic started by: Randall Kayfes on February 16, 2018, 06:00:47 PM
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I have USB Data Logger which currently works flawlessly with WL(PC). So here goes...
1) WL(PC), while running stores my data on my HDD and could upload to WL.com 2, so
a. To utilize WL.com 2 I still must run WL(PC) to up load it to WL.com 2 – correct?
2) To convert fully to utilizing WL.com 2 I would need IP Data Logger?
3) WL(PC) stores my data on my HDD as long as I have room on the HDD (basically forever)
a. WL.com 2 however does not give me back my data unless I manually download?
b. WL.com 2 currently max’s out at a year or some other limit – correct?
i. So manually download or lose it?
I am not trying to be snarky in any way I am just trying to get an idea of what my options are.
Regards, Randall
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1) Yes with a subscription re upload
1a) Yes
2) Not really, only if you didn't want a monthly (basic) subscription and didn't want to run your PC 24/7
3) Yes
3a) Correct
3b) Probably, there would have to be a finite limit but have not checked into this
3bi) Yes, The first amendment re data storage
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First thank you for the quick response!
So the basic (free) subscription is only available for IP Data Logger owners - Correct?
Finally I just scoured the Davis website and could not find the data loggers listed.
Are they going to continue to sell non-IP Data Loggers?
Thanks again, Randall
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Hi Randall,
I don't regularly run WL (usb logger) but I signed up a couple months ago for WL.com 2 and that works fine on the free plan whenever I shut down Cumulus and run WL. Some features on the paid subscription are not available in the free version so they remind me about their paid plan whenever i sign in. But it works on USB logger and would be a nice addition for you to be on the map.
Enjoy,
Paul
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The new Davis products website IMHO is a mess. All done, I guess, in the name of having a site that's equally accessible (or inaccessible!) on PC browsers and mobile devices - have to say that I'm increasingly skeptical as to whether this can ever work well. But leaving that to one side, essentially all Davis products that used to be there are still there, including all the loggers; you just have a dig a little harder sometimes or catch the website unawares ;).
But as a quick resume of wl.com 2.0:
There are 4 ways of uploading data:
* Standard USB (or serial) loggers attached to a PC or Mac and running the Weatherlink software;
* IP logger
* Vantage Connect units
* Enviromonitor gateways
Of these, I guess only the first two are of prime interest here.
There are then two feature levels: Basic (free); and Pro (ca $50pa).
Basic gives all previous features of the IP logger (but in a considerably updated format), ie current conditions web page with a daily summary and also accessible via a mobile app; storage for 10,000+ archive records available for download into WL for Windows (for long-term storage and analysis); automatic uploads to WU, CWOP etc; email alerts;
Pro gives unlimited data storage online and the Chart+Browse features online, plus an app called Mobilize that provides more sophisticated forecasts. More features to come.
That's it in a nutshell.
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Thank you all for the clarification!
Randall
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So... Basically if I give them my data they give me some ability to graph and present the data in visually pleasing manner.
This is much in the same way WU does it and now even NWS does it with their phone app and forecast web page - a fair trade by all three.
The downside to WU is under reporting of wind gusts, and NWS is typically delayed by 20-40 minutes (though they are getting really better).
WL(PC) is completely MS XP retro, some people actually love the retro look :-) but all I use it for is the live data bulletin, and exporting to MS Excel).
I now have 21 years of data in .WLK files, exported to CSV .txt files, and imported into yearly Excel spreadsheets.
This is all done starting with a WL(PC) export.
WL PC or .com 2, WU and NWS cannot come close to what a good Excel pivot table and conditional formatting can do.
So for live data it looks like non retro WL.com 2 could spice it up a bit and I got no problems loaning my data to Davis.
Better there than a freebie for WU, and data gifting to NWS via CWOP is a no brainer "yes".
So I think I have got all the info I need and I thank you again for helping me get clarification.
Regard, Randall
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That's it in a nutshell.
What method do I tell my neighbors and relatives to use, to see the weather at my location, on WeatherLink.com?
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=W5VBQ
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KMOLEESS9#history
???
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Sounds like they have to register first to see your station...
National Geographic does the same thing with photos...
BTW
NWS is https://forecast-v3.weather.gov/point/##.####,-##.#### (replaced by # with latitude, longitude of PWS you want)
Mine is https://forecast-v3.weather.gov/point/32.4417,-111.0788
The "NWS Now" phone app can drill right down to your station and stick to it if you want..
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Sounds like they have to register first to see your station...
Yes, that's correct. It's pretty simple and painless, but an unnecessary complication IMHO. And provided you tick the 'remember me' then after the first time you get straight in.
For a non-owning visitor:
1. Register an account;
2. Ah, I'm not 100% sure without checking. The first time, you just search for the name of a station and then click on the Bulletin link in the marker. The URL then contains a GUID, but what I'm not sure about is whether that's sticky or not in a web browser. But pretty sure you can remember it in the mobile app. This may well be an element of the sharing feature, which is still in development right now.
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So, not nearly as convenient as WU or CWOP.
Thanks for clearing that up.
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First impressions:
Unlike WU it actually gets Wind Gusts correct however when flipping between the tiled bulletin and tabled bulletin the tabled bulletin was minutes older unless I did a browser refresh.
Second, I am going to use WL.com 2 to upload to WU as it does solve the Wind Gust under reporting issue.
I am not going to let WL.com 2 do the push to CWOP. I might later but for now I want see how reliable WL.com 2 is at pushing data to WU
The simplicity of the CWOP push is very temping compared to WL(PC).
My station is too new to be seen on the phone app yet.
Randall
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The issue with Tiled Tabled Bulletin seems to be explained by my station being a little new as both pages agree now.
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So, not nearly as convenient as WU or CWOP.
Certainly you don't currently have a single URL that you can quote to people. But do remember that this is very much a work in progress. The features that are there right now seem to work pretty robustly as far as I can judge. But I'm aware that there's a lot of development and support work going on currently. Part of that will be directed towards the mass migration from 1.0 to 2.0 that will happen in 2-3 months' time. And part will be extensions to the EM functionality.
But there are also significant extensions to the feature-set for wl.com 2.0 as a whole in development AIUI. So limitations that might exist right now won't necessarily apply in 6-12 months' time.
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WL.com 2 Seems to push data to WU ever 15ish to 20ish minutes verses WL(PC) pushing it out exactly every 5 minutes.
You can verify this by looking at your data in table format in WU.
Just an observation...
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This requirement that non station owners have to create an account and login in just to see the weather has a lot of bad connotations about it.
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Not gonna be popular with the "rapid-fire" weather folks.
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This requirement that non station owners have to create an account and login in just to see the weather has a lot of bad connotations about it.
Yup, it smacks of BIG BROTHER "tracking" and "profile" data mining.
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The phone app cannot find my station no matter how I search for it.
Also the app is far inferior to both the WU app and the NWS Now app.
My favorite app right now is the NWS Now app with the current, forecast, moon, sun, etc. info all in one place.
WU does the same but does have the wind gust issue and I just like the look of the NWS app.
I will continue to give Davis my data and check in occasionally.
This experiment leaves me a little disappointed with the knowledge that WL(PC) is stuck in XP mode forever.
WL.com 2 updates every minute or so but in a monsoon I really like watching the storm live in WL(PC) and it is free! (RapidFire comes closer)
Especially if the console is in a different room...
Still they did a pretty good job for a second run at it.
Randall
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By requiring an account Davis is missing out on a fantastic exposure opportunity.
A lot more people would go there and maybe even buy a station for themselves!
Randall
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I recently set up a new Vantage Pro 2 that I was going to share with the neighbors in our subdivision. The WeatherLink Mobile app would have been the ideal way to share the data with them until I learned it was not available.
The new WeatherLink 2.0 works OK for me as an individual but it’s not as an app for neighborhood users. What a shame.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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So... you could run a Saratoga or Leuven template weather website using our plugins for Weatherlink.com V2.0/V1.0
It's not quite what you can get using the PC/Mac WeatherLink program, but it does work..
My example: https://saratoga-weather.org/WLCOM/wxindex.php
(p.s. I've also been developing a plugin to use Ambientweather.net as a data source for any station you submit data there.)
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Greetings Mac005,
Get WL2 to send your data to CWOP and use the NWS Now app - fantastic display of data and ad free as well!
or get WL2 to send your data to WU and use the WU app - full of ads
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Greetings Ken,
Are differences because of WL2 or are they just an updated interface?
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Are differences because of WL2 or are they just an updated interface?
The differences have obviously been introduced with WL2, wouldn't be as a result of WL2 but would appear a deliberate part of WL2. WL1 probably could have had everybody create a viewing account as well but that didn't occur however WL2 is a flow on from WL1 learnings?
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The phone app cannot find my station no matter how I search for it.
What's your station name?
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By requiring an account Davis is missing out on a fantastic exposure opportunity.
A lot more people would go there and maybe even buy a station for themselves!
I'm not convinced about this, other than maybe putting off visitors with only the most marginal potential interest. Yes, you do have to supply a user name and password when first registering for an account. But after that simple one-time action:
1. You can have your computer/phone remember your log-in, so that subsequently you just get straight in.
2. It will also remember a default site for you and will present that data immediately on accessing www.weatherlink.com
Try it, it really is simple once past that very first log-in. If you have neighbours who might seriously wish to view your weather data on a regular basis then it's surely not much of a hurdle?
Where I do think there's more of an issue is that you can't post a simple URL eg on your website that will allow anonymous access to your current weather data by a random/transient visitor. Maybe that will change in time.
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My site name is:
Sky Ranch Arizona
also johnd everything about my computer and me is 24hr time anyway possible to make that one of the settings?
Randall
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I'm not convinced about this, other than maybe putting off visitors with only the most marginal potential interest. Yes, you do have to supply a user name and password when first registering for an account. But after that simple one-time action:
It's more about the relative inconvenience.
1. Owners have to supply those instructions to people (relatives, neighbors, etc.). And then perhaps do some hand-holding.
Quite different from saying "click here"
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KMOLEESS9#history
2. Some people are reluctant to provide personal information (email address).
3. Setup to remember login info on every device used.
4. Etc.
Not a giant deal, perhaps - but.....
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It's more about the relative inconvenience.
I don't disagree and, to be clear, IMO it would definitely be better if you could get straight in via a simple URL.
All I was debating really was how much of a hurdle the present arrangement is and, given that most people have throwaway identities and email addresses these days for just this sort of issue, I'm struggling to persuade myself that anyone who seriously wanted to view the data on a regular basis would find this much of an impediment. But I'm repeating myself now so I'll stop! :-)
@Kaymann: I can see your Sky Ranch immediately by searching on the mobile app. Two things: First, I think there may be some slight delay before a new station gets added to the list of stations. Second, if you're still having problems seeing it on the mobile app, are you definitely using the 2.0 app - 2.0 stations need the 2.0 app and are invisible to the old 1.0 app. If you haven't done so already, you may need to download the new app version - it's the one with a green icon.
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John thanks for the clarification that green one made all he difference.
I will definitely check this 2.0 app out more closely. What a difference!
Randall
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Lets try the real question? Why is Davis forcing this viewer login?
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Lets try the real question? Why is Davis forcing this viewer login?
There's endless scope to speculate, but I'd suggest a couple of functional reasons:
A major change in 2.0 is the ability to have multiple stations in one account (vs 1.0 where each station effectively had its own account). But if the platform doesn't know who you are then how can it show you the list of your stations (where your list might include stations you own; those that have been shared with you; plus any others whose Bulletin data you like to check regularly)?
You may say that most users only have one station, but remember that the 2.0 platform is intended to cater for all Davis stations including EM, where the use of multiple gateways will be commonplace. And farmers often already have multiple VP2 stations, including Connect units. Once the decision was made that there was going to be one single all-embracing 2.0 platform then it had to be designed to accommodate the more demanding multi-station configurations and hence the same rules for everyone.
Second, 2.0 is a large software project. What you see right now is probably the minimum feature-set that Davis felt able to launch with. There will certainly be major new features in development and one of those might conceivably be be re-enabling single URL access to individual station's data. (Purely speculation on my part, but if there were a lot of feedback from users requesting the return of this capability then it might happen.) But right now I suspect the developers' main focus is on ensuring that the mass migration from 1.0 to 2.0 all goes smoothly in 2-3 months time.
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Are differences because of WL2 or are they just an updated interface?
The differences have obviously been introduced with WL2, wouldn't be as a result of WL2 but would appear a deliberate part of WL2. WL1 probably could have had everybody create a viewing account as well but that didn't occur however WL2 is a flow on from WL1 learnings?
Sorry, I was not clear - I was referring to the Saratoga Template...
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Greetings Johnd,
Having the WL2 android app for a day now,I can see it is really jammed packed with all the info I would want in a weather app. Just missing Moon rise/set :-)
Fantastic
Randall
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Greetings Ken,
Are differences because of WL2 or are they just an updated interface?
It was because the access point for station data XML was changing V1 v.s. V2, and the V2 access would get stations reporting to either the V1 or V2 sites. The old access was for V1 sites only. They also added a JSON return in addition to the XML return. For Wim and I, the changes were fairly minor.. the data structure returned with V2 was the same as V1 XML.
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Even with WL2.0 each station would have to still have a unique station ID, no difference to WL1.0, correct? Even if an owner has multiple stations under one login it still doesn't explain why every viewer has to have a login, all they need is the URL of a particular station, correct?
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Even with WL2.0 each station would have to still have a unique station ID, no difference to WL1.0, correct? Even if an owner has multiple stations under one login it still doesn't explain why every viewer has to have a login, all they need is the URL of a particular station, correct?
Not correct, every visitor has to login to WL.comv2 first, to see any station, even one own station.
Their current design does not allow casual viewers who want to click on a supplied link,.
The use of an iframe to show ones own station data on ones own website faces that same problem. A visitor has to login first.
But their developers are already working on a solution,
Wim
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Even with WL2.0 each station would have to still have a unique station ID, no difference to WL1.0, correct? Even if an owner has multiple stations under one login it still doesn't explain why every viewer has to have a login, all they need is the URL of a particular station, correct?
Hmm, well. Each station does have its own identifier in the form of its DID (actual or virtual MAC address). But AFAIK there's no mechanism currently announced and implemented that would make an individual station accessible via its DID alone. Yes, you could imagine a URL in the form of just eg www.weatherlink.com/user/DID but that's not apparently been implemented as yet. The station name is now relegated to a secondary descriptive/search role and no longer uniquely identifies the station.
There is what appears to be a GUID/UUID (ie a long ID string of characters that doesn't have any independent meaning) in a station URL but whether that's a permanent link or not I've not investigated; but anyway it's too cumbersome a mechanism for anyone to type in reliably and AFAIK (you're welcome to try) doesn't work around the need to log in. Here's one for instance:
www.weatherlink.com/bulletin/c4f49631-432f-46a9-b852-9cd14d1bf972 (http://www.weatherlink.com/bulletin/c4f49631-432f-46a9-b852-9cd14d1bf972)
though see how you get on with:
www.weatherlink.com/bulletin/ID001D0A800055 (http://www.weatherlink.com/bulletin/ID001D0A800055)
(It works for me, but probably only because I'm already logged in to that account. If it should work then don't rely on it being permanent - there are various extra checks in the access URLs that don't appear to be being enforced at present.)
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Johnd, Both those links come up with the same Login screen.
Still fail to see Davis's point on this insistence that viewer only people have to create a dummy login account to simply view/look?
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Johnd, Both those links come up with the same Login screen.
OK, worth a try.
Still fail to see Davis's point on this insistence that viewer only people have to create a dummy login account to simply view/look?
As explained upthread.
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Not gonna be popular with the "rapid-fire" weather folks.
Is rapid fire not an option with WL2.0?
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Is rapid fire not an option with WL2.0?
No, it can't be - uploads to wl.com are at most only every minute, which isn't really RF, and data push from wl.com to WU is currently every 15 mins IIRC.
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Is rapid fire not an option with WL2.0?
No, it can't be - uploads to wl.com are at most only every minute, which isn't really RF, and data push from wl.com to WU is currently every 15 mins IIRC.
Thanks John. I currently have my WL2.0 account to get updated every 10 minutes. And I do see WU is only every 15.
That said - is there a way to have WU be in sync with me? i.e. update every 10 minutes (or any interval I choose - even down to 1 minutes)? Or are the options for date going to WU either 15 minutes or RF?
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That said - is there a way to have WU be in sync with me? i.e. update every 10 minutes (or any interval I choose - even down to 1 minutes)?
No, I don't think so, not via wl.com. As far as I know your only options are to do the WU uploads outside of wl.com (eg Meteobridge Pro could be one option) - probably the best plan - or wait and see if any new features are added to wl.com in the future - not saying that any new features are imminent, but who knows. Equally who knows what the future of WU might be - it could just fade away?
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That said - is there a way to have WU be in sync with me? i.e. update every 10 minutes (or any interval I choose - even down to 1 minutes)? Or are the options for date going to WU either 15 minutes or RF?
Just run the WeatherLink software, and have it upload to WU - instead of (or actually in addition to) WeatherLink.com V2.
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That said - is there a way to have WU be in sync with me? i.e. update every 10 minutes (or any interval I choose - even down to 1 minutes)? Or are the options for date going to WU either 15 minutes or RF?
Just run the WeatherLink software, and have it upload to WU - instead of (or actually in addition to) WeatherLink.com V2.
Was hoping to use one software solution (WL2.0) vs using and managing two along with the dedicated PC associated with WL6. Hopefully Davis will add a RF option to the WU settings page.
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Well I am content with the new routine:
WL6. does the talking to my station and then WL6 talks to CWOP's and WL2.
WL2 then talks to WU but not to CWOPS - not yet anyway.
My cell phone talks to WL2 and NWS.
If the WL2 app had a tug refresh and a full width widget I could drop the NWS Widget...
Because of the registration issue I tell my neighbors to use the NWS Widget or WU widget - their choice.
Davis has definitely pulled out of the shoulder lane and is now travelling in the HOV Express lane on the internet highway.
PS - Does anyone know of the WL2 to CWOP's time interval and is it reliable enough to let WL2 do the heavy lifting there?
Randall
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PS - Does anyone know of the WL2 to CWOP's time interval and is it reliable enough to let WL2 do the heavy lifting there?
Randall
I am using WL2 to CWOP reliably. Not sure of the interval. I can do some digging to see
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PS - Does anyone know of the WL2 to CWOP's time interval and is it reliable enough to let WL2 do the heavy lifting there?
Randall
I am using WL2 to CWOP reliably. Not sure of the interval. I can do some digging to see
I switched it over to WL2.0 so now the topography is WLPC > WL2.0 > WU & CWOPS & Cell Phone.
Everything seems reliable enough.
Randall